In March 1984, I was elected a member of the United Nations Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, the main subsidiary body of the Commission on Human Rights. The Subcommission subsequently elected me as Special Rapporteur and asked me to prepare a report on human rights and youth, to be submitted at the thirty-ninth session of the Subcommission. However, when I included in my report information on violations of human rights in my own country, the Ceausescu Government sent a letter to the United Nations, in which it stated that, in May 1987, I had suffered a heart attack and had fallen seriously ill.

In fact, I had been put in detention.

Under dramatic circumstances, I wrote to the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Human Rights that I had been hospitalized twice and forced as of 1 December 1987 to retire from various governmental posts, and that despite strong pressure on me and my family, I would not comply with the Government's request that I decline voluntarily to submit the report. I also in-formed the Under-Secretary-General that the Romanian authorities were refusing to grant me a permit to travel to Geneva.

On 1 September 1988, the Subcommission requested the Secretary-General to make one more approach to Romania, invoking the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, adopted on 13 February 1946, and asking for the Government's cooperation. The Romanian Government responded in a 6 January 1989 aide-mémoire asserting that I had been examined "in accordance with Romanian law ... by a panel of doctors which decided to place me on the retired list". The Government also denied that the Convention was applicable to my case and maintained that it "does not equate rapporteurs, whose activities are only occasional, with experts on missions for the United Nations".

In the meantime, I finished my report and—under very risky circumstances—sent it on to United Nations officials. It was published in all UN official languages and in many important newspapers of the world. In the report, I had underlined "unprecedent aggression against the rights and freedoms of the younger generation", and "grave dangers to the moral health of young people". In a "Special view on the Romanian case", I had presented the violations of human rights in my country. I did inform the United Nations on "unprecedented aggression against man", on "pulverization of freedom and annihilation of the personality", including the "violence and barbarous aggression by bulldozers against human beings". I had underlined that "hunger, cold and fear were put in the service of the subjugation of man" and "the destruction of human values".

The Ceausescu authorities were furious when the Report was made public. The pressure applied against me and my family was so strong and impossible to describe. Under such unusual circumstances, on 24 May 1989, the United Nations Economic and Social Council adopted resolution 1989/75, requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the applicability of Article VI, Section 22, of the Convention, to my case.

And the ICJ, through a unanimous decision, asked the Ceausescu Government to free me and my family, and to let me fulfil my mission as Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Youth. The Ceausescu authorities, however, refused to comply with the World Court's decision and, on 21 December 1989, took me, my wife and my son to kill us all. But the revolution prevented that. The following day, the Ceausescu regime was eliminated and I was appointed Vice-President of Romania.

Our people started to build a new life. And in spite of some economic difficulties which we are facing now, we are sure that in the future everyone will enjoy democracy, freedom and dignity.

About the Author:

Professor Dumitru Mazilu, is the Chairman of the 31st session of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. —Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19